Complaint alleges disparities for female athletes at NIC, but newer numbers show equity
A formal complaint filed by a Sandpoint man alleges North Idaho College is not providing equal opportunities for female college students to play sports under Title IX.
Mark Rossmiller submitted the complaint Tuesday to the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights.
The complaint refers to NIC’s latest Equity in Athletics Data Analysis survey from the 2021-22 school year, which indicates an 8.9% disparity between male and female athletes.
According to current rosters for the 2024-25 school year on NIC’s website, however, the numbers are essentially even, with 95 male athletes and 94 female athletes.
NIC spokesman Tom Greene said Friday the college has not received the complaint.
“North Idaho College is committed to ensuring equal access to opportunities and resources for all students,” Greene said in a statement. “We have not been contacted by OCR concerning this complaint, but will investigate the allegations accordingly.”
NIC offers four men’s sports – basketball, golf, soccer and wrestling – and five women’s sports: basketball, golf, soccer, softball and volleyball.
Amid $1.8 million athletics budget cuts earlier this month, the college’s board of trustees dropped the men’s and women’s golf programs for next school year.
The complaint claims the loss of the golf program will further reduce female participation in sports.
In an email, Rossmiller said it’s not unusual to have more women’s sports options because of larger male team rosters. It’s the participation numbers that count, not number of sports, he said.
There are 11 golfers on the men’s team and 13 on the women’s.
The budget cuts were part of an effort by new trustees to undo actions of the previous board that dramatically expanded the college’s athletics budget by switching conferences and committing full-ride scholarships for athletes, regardless of residency.
The athletics budget was criticized as “a risk” and “not sustainable” by the college’s accreditor in its most recent peer-evaluation report from October.
The college has been under sanction from the Northwest Commission on Colleges and Universities for nearly three years over concerns about board governance, and it faces the potential loss of accreditation in 2025.
Rossmiller’s complaint requests the civil rights office investigate the claims, disallow cutting any existing women’s sports and requiring the college to increase women’s athletic participation.
Rossmiller has filed thousands of Title IX complaints against high schools and colleges across the country, according to a 2017 article by the Seattle Times.
His bio on the social media platform X describes himself as a “Title IX activist.”
In an email, Rossmiller said he is “tired of women being cheated out of equal education sports opportunities, scholarships and it’s against federal law.”
In 2014, he filed complaints against 121 colleges in California, Inside Higher Ed reported.
Another complaint prompted the University of Washington to change the way it counts women on its rowing crew after Rossmiller alleged UW was artificially inflating its numbers, the Seattle Times reported.
A 2017 Office of Civil Rights investigation based on one of Rossmiller’s complaints found that Washington state’s Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction incorrectly determined whether districts were providing equal athletic opportunities for boys and girls, according to the Columbian.
More recently since moving to North Idaho, Rossmiller has made complaints against school districts in the Panhandle.